A plant-based cancer vaccine that kick-starts the immune system and can be tailored to target specific tumor types shows promise, according to U.S. researchers who tested the vaccine on 16 people with incurable follicular B-cell lymphoma.

More than 70 percent of the patients developed an immune response and none of them showed any significant side effects, Agence France-Presse reported. The study appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

TUESDAY, June 24 (HealthDay News) U.S. researchers say they've spotted an important factor in the development of B-cell lymphomas, one of the fastest growing forms of cancer.

In experiments with mice, researchers at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center, Denver, found that the B-cell receptor on the surface of B-cells can cooperate with the MYC oncogene to accelerate the development of lymphomas. They also found that disrupting signals from the B-cell receptor can inhibit tumor growth.